Four senior Centre Wellington District High School students: Samarah Workman, Grade 11; Brianna Dolderman, Grade 12; Karlie Dolderman, Grade 12; and Christina Dolderman, Grade 11, had quite the experience at the CWOSSA (Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association) 5km race on Oct. 25.
The race consisted of 234 girls from different high schools in Wellington County, all hoping to make it to the OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) All-Ontario Cross-Country race on Nov. 2.
In order to make it to the All-Ontario race, a team must place in the top two, and only five girls from each team can go.
“We had six girls who were all very comparable in speed and competitive in nature,” Karlie said. “My older sister Brianna was an expected winner of first or second on our team, and my younger sister and I left to hope we were not the fateful ‘sixth’”.
The week prior to the Oct. 25 race, the girls’ team placed first in the District 4/10 cross-country race, which gave them reason to believe they could make it to the OFSAA event.
Brianna, Karlie and Christina were home schooled up until last year. The siblings decided to attend public school to earn certain credits required for university and to play on more competitive Sports teams.
The day of the race, the girls lined up elbows-to-elbows, squished and ready to go. Karlie and Brianna got off to a good start, while younger sister Christina didn’t have such luck, boxed in on the narrow track by slower contestants. “If you don’t have a good start you probably won’t have a good race,” Christina said.
About half-way through the race, something just wasn’t right. Brianna began to feel faint and couldn’t see properly, “I felt fine at the start of the race, but then I started to get really blurry vision like I was running through water,” she said.
Brianna was very determined to finish the race, stumbling throughout, unaware of what was going on.
Karlie passed her sister Brianna, “it shocked me as this had never happened before,” Karlie said. She placed third. After crossing the finish line she looked back only to see her older sister Brianna collapsed on the finish line and younger sister Christina crying beside her.
About 100m before the finish line, Christina had caught up to Brianna and had to make the decision of whether she should pass her collapsed sister and make it to OFSAA like she had hoped, or to stay and help her.
“I thought to myself … I could go and make it to OFSAA or stay and help my sister. It would’ve been great to run at OFSAA, that’s what you train for,” Christina said.
Christina noted that it was more important for her to see Brianna go to OFSAA than herself since it is Brianna’s last year at Centre Wellington, and Christina still has next year to compete.
She picked up her sister and carried her as best as she could the rest of the way where she then pushed her over the finish line, hoping her sister could still place in the top five and move forward to the OFSAA.
Samarah had placed fifth, Brianna placed sixth, and Christina placed seventh.
At this point, neither Brianna nor Christina made it to OFSAA. “Neither of my sisters made it to OFSAA. Though Brianna should have gone based on her athletic ability and Christina could have passed Brianna and made it to OFSAA, neither did,” Karlie said.
At the next senior girls cross-country meeting, Samarah (team-mate who passed Christina and Brianna just before the finish line) offered to give her spot on the team to Brianna.
“I had a decision to make, I could either keep that position and run at OFSAA or give it to Brianna,” Samarah said.
“I feel like this is an amazing example of self-sacrifice,” Karlie said. “As Samarah and Christina cheer Brianna and I during the race, we all will hold the memory of the CWOSSA meet. We will run our hardest for our team, but even harder for the two high school girls who gave up their goals for a friend.”
Brianna was taken to Guelph General Hospital, where she spent the rest of the day. She had blood work and MRI testing done. Doctors believe it was a migraine attack.
